Electronic Arts’ already-troubled relationship with the gaming community has sunk to new lows in recent weeks, and one anonymous fan turned their anger into something as mournful as it is beautiful: a memorial mural dedicated to the many, many studios EA has killed off over the years.
The mural’s creator unveiled their creation on the r/gaming subreddit. Set up outside EA’s Vancouver headquarters, the piece features seven headstones dedicated to seven major gaming studios EA shut down over the last few decades. Each tombstone lists the year the studio started, the year EA shut it down, and a unique quote inspired by its most well-known games and franchises.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown of the mural, tombstone by tombstone.
- Bioware, 1995-2026, “It had to be Me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong”
- Bullfrog, 1987-2001, “Godhood was not enough.”
- Pandemic, 1988-2009, “War is my business.”
- Origin, 1983-2004, “The worlds are ended. The dream lives on.”
- Visceral, 1998-2017, “Once space; now dead.”
- Maxis, 1987-2014, “They cut back funding, and they regretted it.”
- Westwood, 1985-2003, “I live in death.”
In their post, the creator describes the mural as the culmination of their long-simmering frustration with EA, describing the company’s recent decision to shutter Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare as the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“We’ve had EA offices in town for years… decades. But this year, with the timing, I decided that maybe, maybe a little more should be done. So a day of cutting, painting, printing and taping ended with this little display getting set up outside their offices.”
The work has been met with overwhelming positivity. Many praised the mural’s creativity and expressed their own frustration with EA’s tendency to put profit over the people who create its games. Others shared fond memories of the various studios’ work, with franchises like Origin’s Ultima and Westwood’s Command and Conquer getting the lion’s share of attention.
Some observers, however, offered at least some defense of EA, arguing that a few studios on the list (namely BioWare) didn’t always make the best decisions with their most popular properties and that EA’s financial backing gave these studios the chance to make many of their best games.
In an edit responding to these comments, the author acknowledged there was room for nuance in the discussion surrounding EA and its past ventures. That said, they adamantly defend their choice to build the mural, arguing that these studios deserve to be remembered and proudly admitting they would have put the names of other shuttered EA-owned studios like Mythic and Black Box if they’d had more time.
Some games will resonate and land hard. Others just won’t. But running an “up or out” management process inevitably has everyone out.
With EA firmly on track to make more audience-alienating decisions, this is one of many gamers expressing their distaste for the company through art. Anti-EA movements like “Save Mass Effect” already use art to spread their message, so the tombstone-maker is in good company. Maybe there’ll even be some collaboration at some point?
